Chapter Twelve
Jaci retrieved the carved wooden box that held her cards, tucked between two rosemary plants on the kitchen windowsill.
Returning to the living room and sitting next to Gabriel on the couch, she rifled through the cards until she found the three from the reading the other night, then laid them out on the coffee table:
Three of Knives, with the silver-haired girl sitting in the snow in the middle of a cemetery, clutching a dagger before a white rose dripping with blood.
Death, the pale corpse wrapped in a black serpent, waiting to rise again.
And last, the Ten of Knives, the ultimate betrayal, a woman stabbed with a dagger, bleeding out on white bedding embroidered with black roses.
She did her best to explain their meanings, the feelings she got from each one that night, the ultimate message she’d interpreted. “It’s hard to describe, but after sitting with it for a bit, I just knew. Everything clicked into place. The missing ingredient for the binding spell was the heart of the cursed vampire himself.”
Gabriel picked up the Death card, examining it closely—almost reverently. “And that bit about turning me into a gray?”
“It would’ve been the only way to keep the heart intact,” she admitted, doing her best to keep her voice even. “If you actually died, you’d turn to ash and so would your heart.”
He dropped the card as if it’d suddenly burned him. “Tricky business, carving up a vampire.”
In the awkward silence that followed, Jaci reassembled the cards, then began shuffling them absently, calmed by the motion, by the familiar feel of the cards against her palm. Even now, when she hadn’t intended on doing an actual reading, she felt their magic—a tingling warmth in her hands, a buzz that ran up her arms and straight into her heart.
Gabriel shifted on the couch, his thigh brushing against hers, and one of the cards jumped suddenly from the deck.
It landed face-up on the coffee table, showing them a pale woman lying on a bed of white roses, blood leaking from her lips, a single red rose draped over her shoulder. A death’s-head hawkmoth perched on her arm as her vampire lover lay beside her, nuzzling her neck.
“The Lovers card?” Gabriel quirked an eyebrow and picked it up, his eyes sparkling with mischief. “And what doesthisone mean, I wonder?”
Jaci’s heart skipped a beat as she rushed to explain. “It’s… complicated. Like any card, sometimes it can be taken literally—lovers, a relationship, intense desire, a deeply intimate bond, sex. Other times it’s more figurative. It may signify a crossroads or a choice.”
“Two sides of the magical coin?” he asked, echoing her earlier words. “So you believe love is a choice?”
“I… wait. What? No, I didn’t say thechoicewas about love. It’s a metaphor. Youdoknow what a metaphor is, right, Prince?”
“Youdoknow how to answer a question, right, witch?” he teased.
“Did you ask one?”
“I asked,” he said, turning to face her fully, that maddening smirk playing at his lips, “if you believe love is a choice. Do you?”
“I… I think…” Jaci’s heart thudded, mouth going dry, every part of her body supremely aware of his gaze. It swept down her face, down her chest, right down to her hands fisted tight against each thigh. “I think you still owemean answer, Prince. You never told me about your so-called epiphany.”
He laughed—his rare, real laugh—rich and warm and buttery, a sound that made her heart gallop even harder. “Nice save, witch. Truly.”
“So? What’s the story?”
His laughter faded, and for a minute she regretted asking for his thoughts. But sitting around making innuendos over sexy Tarot cards wasn’t going to help them find her sister, and it certainly wasn’t going to fix the colossal mess she’d made of things between them.
“In everything you’ve told me,” he said, “I keep coming back to this: the magical connection to Viansa is based on the curse, not on me specifically.”
“Right.”
“So for the purposes of a binding spell,anyof my brothers’ hearts would work equally well, yes?”
She ran her hands down her spandex-covered thighs. “I mean, sure. Technically any of the Redthorne hearts would’ve done it. Same with Charley’s, assuming Dorian’s the one who sired her. It’s all the same sire line—which means it’s the same curse. The same direct connection to Viansa.”
“That, Jacinda Colburn, is the best news you’ve given me all night.” He grinned at her, very close to unleashing another laugh.
“Don’t tell me to sacrifice one of your brothers, Gabriel. No way. I don’t care which one of them pissed in your Lucky Charms this morning, it’snothappening.”
